ITALY UNCOVERS ISLAMIST PLOT TO ATTACK VATICAN AND ISRAELI EMBASSY

Italian authorities arrested four people suspected of extremism on Thursday and issued arrest warrants for two more operating in Syria, according to the Milan prosecutor.

Authorities said one of the suspects is a Moroccan-born national living in Italy who had received orders from the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) to conduct an attack in Rome during the Holy Year, a period announced by Pope Francis that lasts from December 2015 to November 2016.

The man, who authorities named as Abderrahim Moutahrrick, is reported to have received a WhatsApp message from ISIS-held territory that read: “Dear brother Abderrahim, I send you... the bomb poem... listen to the sheik and strike,” in reference to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Milan prosecutor Maurizio Romanelli said that Moutahrrick planned to attack the Vatican and the Israeli embassy in Rome and told one of the other suspects, 23-year-old Moroccan-born Abderrahmane Khachia, in a monitored conversation: “I want to hit Israel in Rome.” Authorities arrested Khachia in the northern Italian city of Varese and Moutahrrick was living in the city of Lecco, north of Milan in the province of Lombardy.

Romanelli added that Italian investigators intercepted the message before swooping on the cell and said that the threat was specific as it came from an individual who had received direct orders.

“This is a new profile, because it was not a generic indication, but an indication given to a specific person who was invited to act within the territory of the Italian state,” Romanelli said, according to Italian news agency Ansa.

The Italian authorities issued arrest warrants for an Italian-Moroccan couple who traveled to Syria last year to join ISIS, with the man in the relationship named as Mohamed Koraichi. He is allegedly the man who directed Moutahrrick to carry out the attacks on Italian soil.

According to authorities, Moutahrrick had sought to buy weapons from an Albanian fixer in Italy and stated his intention to attack the Vatican, but also had plans to take his family—a wife and two children aged 2 and 4—to ISIS-held territory in Syria.

“For these enemies I swear if I manage to bring my family to safety, I swear I will be the first to attack...in this crusading Italy...the Vatican with the will of God,” he allegedly told Koraichi in an audio message intercepted by authorities in March.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi thanked authorities on social media for the arrests. “Very important anti-extremist operation in north this morning. Compliments to the ministry, intelligence (services), investigators and police forces #alltogether,” he wrote.

Fairytales don’t tell children that dragons exist; children already know that dragons exist. Fairytales tell children that dragons can be killed. - G.K. Chesterton

Find the courage to proclaim Christ, … and the unchanging truths which have their foundation in Him. These are the truths that set us free! They are the truths which alone can guarantee respect for the inalienable dignity and rights of each man, woman and child in our world – including the most defenseless of all human beings, the unborn child in the mother’s womb. - Pope Benedict XVI

God does not choose the qualified. He qualifies the chosen - Madre Teresa de Calcutá

God gave us ten commandments, not ten thousand. Why? Why not a more complete list of specifics? Because he wanted freedom and variety. Why do you think he created so many persons? Why not just one? Because he loves different personalities. He wants his chorus to sing in harmony, but not in unison - Peter Kreeft

How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been; how gloriously different are the saints. - C.S Lewis

I would like to remind everyone, especially everyone engaged in boosting the world’s economic and social assets, that the primary capital to be safeguarded and valued is man, the human person in his or her integrity - Papa Bento XVI

If medieval people talked less about their own dignity, it is because they were more concerned about God´s dignity; if modern people talk more about it, it is because they are more concerned with themselves - Edward Feser

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It is true that I am of an older fashion; much that I love has been destroyed or sent into exile. G. K. Chesterton

Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith - Alexis de Tocqueville

Mittite in Dexteram Navigii Rete, et Invenietis (João 21,6)

Multiculturalism is the doctrine which says that no culture can ever claim precedence over any other. So there can be no hierarchy of values, and no society can uphold its historic traditions and values against any challenge - Melaine Phillips

Napoleon himself announced to the Pope Pius VII that he was going to destroy the Church, to which Pius VII responded, “Oh my little man, you think you’re going to succeed in accomplishing what centuries of priests and bishops have tried and failed to do!”

Nowadays the devil has made such a mess of everything in the system of life on earth that the world will presently become uninhabitable for anybody but Saints. - Jacques Maritain

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience - Clive.S. Lewis

One was the view that stars are personal beings, governing our lives (astrology); the other the general theory that men have one mind between them (marxism); a view obviously opposed to immortality; that is, to individuality - G.K Chesteron

The difficulty of explaining “why I am Catholic” is that there are 10,000 reasons all amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true. - GK Chesterton

The divide in Western civilization isn't between rich and poor, red vs. blue, or the uneducated vs. the educated. It's God. God is the dividing line. You either believe God loves each of us and grants us inalienable rights or you believe that everything is negotiable including life - Matthew Archbold

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There are only three kinds of people: those who seek God and have found Him — these are wise and happy; those who seek God and have not yet found Him — these are wise and unhappy; and those who live without either seeking God or finding Him — and these are both unwise and unhappy. - Blaise Pascal

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To avoid therefore the evils of inconstancy and versatility, ten thousand times worse than those of obstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we have consecrated the state - Edmund Burke on French Revolution

To be or not to be – that is the question”, then the massive medieval doctor (St. Thomas) does most certainly reply in voice of thunder, “To be – that is the answer - Chesterton

To speak of the Christian heritage of Europe bothers me. And for even greater reason, speaking of “Christian civilization.” Christianity was founded by people who could not have cared less about “Christian civilization.” What interested them was Christ, and the reverberations of his coming on the whole of human existence. Christians believed in Christ, not in Christianity itself; they were Christians, not “Christianists.” - Rémi Brague